The road to 9 wins

Around the Dauphin Athletic Complex, “9 in 2014″ is printed on the backs of Lamar football t-shirts. The premise is pretty simple: the Cardinals are aiming for a nine-win season, which would be a school record since the school changed its name to Lamar University in 1951.

So how can the Cards get to that goal? It will require winning every game they’re favored in as well as the toss-up games. For good measure, they’ll probably need to win at least one game that they’ll be underdogs in. Here’s the breakdown:

Five out the six games that should be considered, “must win,” are at home, with Nicholls being the lone exception. Teams can exceed or fall short of expectations, but going into the season, none of these games can be lost if Lamar legitimately wants to reach nine wins. Truth be told, the Cardinals should at least be 3-1 heading into conference play. Anything short of that would and should be a disappointment. UIW and HBU are newbies to Lamar’s schedule so there will be a certain element of surprise, but those are still games Lamar should win if they want to be as good as they hope to be.

Toss-up games (2): Abilene Christian, Central Arkansas

Both of these game are on the road, which ups the difficulty element. But for the purposes of winning nine games, they’d ideally need to win both of these games. At least one win out of these two games is required, unless Lamar wants to take the harder road to nine wins. They only lost Central Arkansas by two last season, but that was at home. ACU is traditionally known as a tough program, but they’re still making the transition from Division 2 to FCS.

Simply put, Lamar needs to win at least one game they won’t be favored in if they want to hit nine wins. If they lose either or both of the toss-up games, that number goes up, and so does the difficulty of reaching that landmark. SHSU showed big play ability in their loss to Eastern Washington, but their defense left a lot to be desired. Then again, it was against one of the best FCS teams in the country. So who knows what that means right now, especially with that game being about a month away.

McNeese will be a tough game, but there is a bit of a rivalry factor there. Add to that the fact that Lamar lost by four to the Cowboys last season and the Cardinals have reason to think they can steal the season finale in Lake Charles.

Southeastern has a lot of hype coming into this season, picked to win the Southland Conference, and the offense should be really good. The good news for Lamar is that they host the Lions. But the defense will have to play a great game, otherwise the Cards offense will need to prepare to go score-for-score with SLU, something that not many FCS teams will be able to do.

A win at Texas A&M, in the home opener for the renovated Kyle Field, after the Aggies open the season on the road against a tough South Carolina squad, would be icing on the cake. As well as a sign that Lamar could win more than nine games in 2014. This is a money game for Lamar, but FCS teams have been pulling off upsets of FBS teams like it’s in style lately, so who knows.